Since first exhibiting in New York in 1985, Kent Bellows has been recognized as America’s greatest master of figurative drawing. Initially working only in graphite, his startling ability to portray character and persona has attracted the attention of collectors, critics and curators.
Kent Bellows was born on June 26, 1949 in Blair, Nebraska. After attending the University of Nebraska, he applied his extraordinary gift as an artist and draftsman to a career, first as an illustrator and then as a fine artist. He first exhibited his work locally at the Market in Omaha in 1971. Supported by sales of his work and grants from the Warren Buffet Projects Foundation, the Mid-America Arts Alliance and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Kent Bellows continued to exhibit his exceptional, highly-detailed and perceptive figurative paintings and drawings, and was soon noticed by some of the most discerning American collectors.
Bellows joined Forum Gallery in 1994, and has subsequently been included in nine exhibitions at the New York and Los Angeles locations. The paintings and drawings of Kent Bellows have been widely exhibited by museums around the country including the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (Little Rock, AR), the Art Institute of Chicago (IL), the Frye Art Museum (Seattle, WA), the Huntsville Museum of Art (AL), the National Academy of Design (NY), the Naples Museum of Art (FL), the Neuberger Museum of Art (Purchase, NY), the Sheldon Museum of Art (Lincoln, NE). In 2010, the Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha, NE) presented a retrospective of the Artist’s work.
Works by Kent Bellows are in the permanent collections of numerous institutions, including the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (AR), the Art Institute of Chicago (IL), the Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha, NE), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), the New Britain Museum of American Art (CT), and the Toledo Museum of Art (OH).
After Bellow’s sudden passing in 2005 at the age of 56, his family set up a foundation that resulted in the transformation of his studio in downtown Omaha, NE. Today, the Kent Bellows Studio and Center for Visual Arts has mentored countless young artists in his home state. The Kent Bellows Art Scholarship Fund and Kent Bellows Mentoring Program at the Joslyn Art Museum continues to foster creativity in Nebraska.